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Meta Key

Posted Apr 6, 2009 2:38 UTC (Mon) by rfunk (subscriber, #4054)
In reply to: Shortening the rope by dododge
Parent article: Shortening the rope

"I think the last time I touched an actual meta key was on a DECStation
keyboard in the early 90s"

What, no Windows keyboard for you?

I map the Windows-logo key to Meta, since it sure looks to me like the
meta keys I had I my old Sun SparcStations. Similarly, Apple keyboards
have an Apple-logo key that serves the same purpose. Note that both Emacs
and X11 have a separate modifier code for Alt and Meta.

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Meta Key

Posted Apr 9, 2009 5:44 UTC (Thu) by daniels (subscriber, #16193) [Link]

Strictly speaking, X has no 'modifier code' for Alt (though it can be mapped as a separate modifier via vmods), which is why Meta is generally used.

Meta Key

Posted Apr 17, 2009 12:31 UTC (Fri) by Ross (subscriber, #4065) [Link]

There are eight modifier flags, three of which have permanent meaning (shift, control, and
capslock). So really those are the only ones which are guaranteed to exist on every X server.

Meta, Alt, Hyper, Super, etc. can be mapped to any of the other five if those keysyms (or left or
right vaiants) exist.

My experience is that this stuff isn't very well documented and certain applications interpret things
a little differently.